Economic Update: Homelessness in the U.S.

This week: Updates on politicians’ “blame game” of scapegoating to avoid blaming capitalism; middle class squeezed by prices; limits of workers on corporate boards of directors; lessons from a courageous Puerto Rican people; Prof. Wolff interviews Rob Robinson, activist and global advocate for the homeless on the issues of homelessness in the U.S.

This explains why rampant homelessness is a visible indicator that our social system is broken. This is not just a problem of the people who are homeless. This is an indication that the way we have chosen to organize our society has some flaws we need to fix by changing some aspect of our social organization.

If the cost of housing is rising 5 times faster than incomes are rising, we have to understand that this cannot possibly continue forever. At some point we have to figure out how to make the cost of housing and the level of incomes to come into balance. This is a problem that an individual homeless person cannot possibly solve given how widespread the problem is.